Today was a very dark day for British democracy

Don’t believe for one minute the self-aggrandising claims of the Remainer establishment and its noisy cheerleaders in the media. Tonight’s vote by MPs to seize control of the parliamentary agenda in order to prevent a No Deal Brexit is not, as they claim, a wonderful assertion of parliamentary sovereignty against a dictatorial executive led by Boris Johnson.

No, it is an assertion of the political elite’s arrogant authority over the people. If MPs have seized power from anyone this evening, it is from us, the public, the millions who voted to leave the EU. This is not parliament vs the executive – this is parliament vs the people, and it opens up one of the greatest, most troublesome constitutional crises of modern times.

In essence, this evening MPs have gone some way, almost all the way, to achieving the terrible thing they have been agitating for since June 2016: stopping Brexit. That is their fundamental aim. It is essential to understand that when they talk about ‘blocking No Deal’, they mean ‘blocking Brexit’.

For more than three years they have hampered, frustrated and foiled Brexit, tying it in legal knots, ‘softening’ it beyond recognition, and constantly sending signals to the EU that we will accept whatever ridiculous, Brexit-thwarting compromises they demand.

Now a further, possibly interminable delay will be secured as the newly in-charge, newly emboldened Remainer Parliament votes on the Benn Bill tomorrow. The government was defeated by 328 votes to 301 this evening. Twenty-one Tory MPs joined the ‘revolt’ against Boris’s government. And now MPs, the majority of whom voted Remain, many of whom despise Brexit and fear and loathe the masses who voted for it, will push through the Benn Bill and prevent the UK from leaving the EU without a deal on 31 October (unless parliament consents, which it won’t) and requesting yet another extension to the Article 50 process.

They are killing Brexit. It has been a slow-motion guillotine, with the blade falling for more than three years now, but that is what they are doing. The majority of the establishment has never made any secret of its elitist disgust for Brexit and its facilitators – all 17.4million of us – and they have longed to reassert their presumed wisdom and reason over the idiocy of the masses. Tonight they took a very significant step in that anti-democratic direction.

Probably their most perverse and insulting claim is that they are standing up for parliamentary sovereignty. This is the opposite of the truth. They are ravaging parliamentary sovereignty. These are the people who over the past 40 years have green-lighted the outsourcing of huge swathes of parliament’s authority to Brussels, and whose very efforts to destroy Brexit run counter to parliament’s own handing of that decision to us, the people, and its insistence that it would respect the decision that we made.

It was the vote for Brexit, the vote to take back control from the EU, that was a genuine expression of faith in the institution of parliamentary democracy. In contrast, the elite’s ceaseless war on Brexit is a war on parliamentary sovereignty too, since the ultimate aim of this war is to retain the law-making authority of foreign institutions at the expense of our own institutions.

The elite’s claim to be defending democracy is a brazen lie. It is crushing democracy. It is revolting against the people and the decision we made in 2016. How grotesque for Jeremy Corbyn to say this evening that parliament has struck a blow for the idea that ‘sovereignty rests’ in the people. It has done no such thing. In fact it has elevated the political authority of an out-of-touch and increasingly hysterical elite over the largest democratic decision ever made by the British people.

Brexit is now seriously, perhaps irreversibly, wounded. Whatever comes next, including the General Election, must be used by democrats across the country to remake the democratic cry of 2016 and to reassert the sovereignty of the people and our parliament over the presumed wisdom of Britain’s own elites and the alleged expertise of foreign technocrats. If they void the millions of votes cast in 2016, they void the right to vote itself. We cannot let them win.

Marvin Jones

10th September 2019 at 12:06 pm

Just a little thought for all you intellects who participate in this superb magazine. How about a referendum that is binding, which is if leave win we leave on no deal, but if remain win we join the Euro!

Fred Shred

9th September 2019 at 1:41 pm

Brendan’s problem is a modern one – he doesn’t understand the difference between a representative democracy and a plebiscite democracy. His anger is real. He genuinely believes that an elected representative is bound to implement the result of a popular poll without delay or reflection. That’s a nonsense position and reveals a startling level of ignorance about how a representative democracy works. It’s ridiculous to have to spell this out, but, for all you angry folks, deep breath and read on:

1. The UK, like many Western democracies, is a representative democracy. That means that individual voters entrust elected representatives to act in our best interests and to make decisions on our behalf. *The important point is that they do not do our direct bidding.* They never have done. We expect (or at least hope) that the decisions they take will be aligned with their manifesto or their general economic / social values and opinions. If the decisions they take contradict their manifestos / pre-election promises, then our primary remedy is to vote the baftards out at the next election. The critical point here is that elected representatives are not mere puppets / ciphers who blindly and uncritically do our bidding. Once elected, the very nature of a representative democracy is that they can pretty much do what they like (within reason and within the bounds of the law) until we next get a chance to boot them out at the next election. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy

2. By contrast, in a direct democracy, people call the shots directly. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy
This is what Brexiteers want; which is fair enough. However, many of you seem to assume that we already have that variant of democracy. We don’t.

3. Both types of democracy are valid; both have pros and cons.

4. Nowadays, so used are we to Bake Off, Internet polls etc, that this fundamental distinction has been lost. Brexiteers are genuinely outraged at what they see as a “denial of democracy”. It’s no such thing. It’s just how a representative democracy functions.

5. Brexiteers are outraged that a representative democracy isn’t functioning in the manner of a direct / plebiscite democracy. Essentially, they wish to scrap the current system and move to a form of direct democracy. That’s fair enough; but please let’s all calm down and understand the basic differences before getting knickers in an uninformed twist.

As John Harris noted:

“But there is also something deeper at play. For all that it remains the best model of government and politics human beings have yet come up with, in the 21st century, representative democracy is a very tough sell. When people spend half their lives online and can experience at least the sensation of agency and instant gratification, the idea that we elect MPs to exercise their own judgment and then eventually submit their record for approval or rejection can easily seem woefully old-fashioned. I have lost count of the number of people I have met over the last few years who have angrily told me that the function of the Commons was to simply “do our bidding”.

In a recent YouGov poll, 63% of respondents agreed that MPs must “act according to the wishes of their constituents, even when this goes against their own judgment”, a figure that reached 78% among leave voters and – at which point Edmund Burke spins in his grave – 81% of Tory supporters. It is no accident that, like so many populist forces, Nigel Farage’s Brexit party claims to be in favour of direct democracy.”

I blame the Internet. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see a new TV show – “Nigel’s Great British Vote-Off” wherein all the great national issues of the day – politics, defence, economics – would be decided by viewers online or via their mobiles: “option 1 to cancel the dole in Liverpool; option 2 to bomb Palestine; option 3 to sell N Ireland – nice to screw you, to screw you, nice!”

Clueless. Ask yer average voter what they understand by the separation of powers and why the separation of powers (between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – and supported by a civil service which, at the higher levels, attracts very bright people and further supported by a free press, free from state and /or oligarch / Russian-bot interference) is the bedrock of political freedom and you’ll just get a blank look.

Keith Lear

5th September 2019 at 10:12 am

The current government was elected on the promise that we would NOT leave the EU without a deal. How can it now be democratic to say we are going to leave without a deal?

Hugh Bryant

5th September 2019 at 3:24 pm

Where in the 2017 Tory manifesto does it say that?

Brandy Cluster

7th September 2019 at 1:56 am

And where in the referendum? I must applaud Brendan O’Neill as being one of the few, determined and articulate advocates for UK freedoms. He is nearly alone in this respect. This is a HUGE concern to all of us outside of the UK. Somebody has made the point that the UK has ‘prospered’ being in the EU, but the negatives now outweigh the positives. A supranatural, unelected body of dictators and left wing ideologues are now determining the fate of the UK. Apart from the Cold War and WW2 I cannot remember a more dangerous time to be in a democracy. And all of it instigated by the Left: the people who followed the LIttle Corporal into power – the educated elites; middle class, academics and establishment. The ‘socialists’ of National Socialism. Be very afraid of anything to do with the Left.

James Knight

6th September 2019 at 4:37 pm

It was elected on “no deal is better than a bad deal”.

Paul Jamie Drebelion

5th September 2019 at 4:10 am

We, the people had a vote.Why isn’t it being respected? Do the elements of democracy not matter? The 2016 referendum was put to the people. Who is paying the elites to undermine democracy?

Ian Sutherland

4th September 2019 at 7:00 pm

Remainders are saying boris has no mandate because he never mentioned exiting without a deal. “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” Was the question put to the people. The people voted leave. So yes he does have a mandate. The remain MPs are working against the people. I’d be interested to know if they have personal investments in European states to be honest.

Jerry Owen

5th September 2019 at 7:44 am

The EU is a massive gravy train for politicians when they are washed up here.
Kinnockio and his family do very well out of it.
Not many people realize that being an MEP for just one short session entitles you to a pension.
Nick Griffin MEP for one session now has a pension. How does that sit with the remoaners here ?
If a politician fails as say .. Hammond or Soames have, there is another public teat to suck on, away from the public eye.
Quite disgusting really.

Bo Grimes

4th September 2019 at 3:38 pm

“Probably their most perverse and insulting claim is that they are standing up for parliamentary sovereignty. This is the opposite of the truth. They are ravaging parliamentary sovereignty. These are the people who over the past 40 years have green-lighted the outsourcing of huge swathes of parliament’s authority to Brussels, and whose very efforts to destroy Brexit run counter to parliament’s own handing of that decision to us, the people, and its insistence that it would respect the decision that we made.”

This is the legalistic loophole that has also been causing system decay here in America. Despite the cliche that we have three “co-equal” branches of government, the framers of our constitution clearly intended Congress to be primary.

However, Congress has been delegating more and more power to the executive for decades, while using the theme of an overreaching executive, an Imperial Presidency, as a foil. Congress isn’t sovereign here, but it’s the same two-step shuffle. The argument would be: “Parliament is sovereign, so it can sovereignly delegate authority to Brussels.”

At least here we have the illusion that the people are sovereign. It hasn’t been the case for a long time.

ZENOBIA PALMYRA

4th September 2019 at 5:54 pm

Thirty years of financial stability and almost continuous economic growth in the EU and you people think the EU is the source of all our problems. Don’t you think it is something to do with the fact that the UK is the most centralised state in western Europe, with an unelected head of state and upper chamber, barely functioning local government, a weird and unhealthy obsession with WWII (to the point of psychosis), and lack of a written constitution? Move the capital away from London, get rid of the monarchy and break the dominance of the English ‘public’ schools and then you might begin to see real positive economic and social reform. Stop bleating on about how ‘undemocratic’ the EU is and put your own house in order.

Jerry Owen

5th September 2019 at 8:17 am

Z Palmyra
Try reading ‘non fiction’ for a change.

Hugh Bryant

5th September 2019 at 3:36 pm

Thirty years ago it would not have been unreasonable for a young blue collar worker in this country to expect to be able to get married, buy a house, have children, enjoy fairly easy access to prompt medical treatment and decent schools and look forward to a steadily rising standard of living. All that has gone now. Meanwhile, how much unearned property wealth have you acquired during the same period? Half a million? A million? More?

Jane 70

Lord Doherty has dismissed Maugham’s claim that prorogation is unlawful and ruled in the PM’s favour.

Needless to say, an appeal is now set for Thursday.

And Gina Miller will be back on Thursday, plus Gray Man Major, to tequest a judicial review of the suspension of parliament.

And so it goes on, and on and who’s paying?

R B

4th September 2019 at 2:11 pm

This blog purports to be supportive of democracy yet wants half the population to shut up and get on with implementing a referendum result from 3 years ago.

The referendum result has so far been delivered. Article 50 was triggered. Exit negotiations began. The Civil Service mobilised to facilitate our departure. Parliament has spent countless sessions debating what future relationships should look like. And billions spent on Brexit preparations.

Yes there is more to do – and we have not yet finalised our departure – yet the democratic process allows us to continuously debate, challenge and change the path that the country is on. If enough people want us to turn around and halt Brexit, the democratic thing is to listen to their voice. I do not know if a majority would vote in favour of Brexit or Remain should a second referendum happen today, but the democratic thing is to give people the right to change their mind and to encourage healthy debate, based upon facts and truths.

Thomas Smith

4th September 2019 at 2:32 pm

What’s even more obscene is that Brendan is supporting Johnson’s call upon the
Queen to sanction the proroguing of Parliament. It isn’t democracy, let alone Marxism, that Brendan supports anymore. It’s nationalism.

Steve Gray

4th September 2019 at 3:07 pm

Thomas,

Your description of Brendan O’ Neill’s position on the proroguing of Parliament differs – in fundamental ways – from what he has written on the subject.

Michael Lynch

4th September 2019 at 10:24 pm

Sorry, bit confused about your reply. Could you clarify if you are referring to Boris Johnson or Nicola Sturgeon or both?

ZENOBIA PALMYRA

4th September 2019 at 1:24 pm

The 2016 referendum was advisory. It should have carried a 60% threshold for leave to win given the scale and complexity of the constitutional change envisaged. The 2016 Leave campaign (including Farage) did not campaign explicitly on a no deal ticket; leavers have shifted the goalposts. I fail to see how asserting the sovereignty of parliament over a rabid executive intent on destroying this country economically for the sake of ideology constitutes being ‘anti-democratic’. Johnson and Cummings are both unelected and cannot be allowed to push through constitutional changes with lasting (probably negative) economic consequences without the consent of Parliament. We live in a representative democracy, not a popular one. Again, the 2016 referendum was advisory only, not legally binding. Also, would leavers care to explain how we have enjoyed almost 30 years of almost continuous economic growth while remaining in the EU? The relative poverty of many regions of the country compared to London is more to do with the overcentralised nature of the British political and economic system rather than any failings in the EU. Leavers must stop scapegoating foreigners and the EU for the UK’s obvious internal inadequacies.

LIVE FREE OR DIE

Jane Carter

4th September 2019 at 2:42 pm

I am not persuaded that the 2016 referendum was ‘advisory’ given that the prime minister and government of the day stated quite clearly that they would implement the result. They didn’t say they would take the result into consideration when deciding how to proceed.

Bill Kruse

4th September 2019 at 4:57 pm

Neither the PM nor govt had the authority to say they’d take action on the result. The only thing they could have legitimately said was they’d take it to Parliament for a vote. The whole idea was wrong from the off, we have a representative democracy and faux referendums have no place in it.

Jerry Owen

5th September 2019 at 7:48 am

Bill Kruse
Give people referendum then let Parliament decide if they accept the result it not… Are you for serious ?

Jerry Owen

4th September 2019 at 7:00 pm

Z Palmyra
Perhaps you can tell me where it said on the government leaflet it said that the referendum was advisory ? it told me that it would implement the result of the referendum.
If you can’t tell me where it said the result would be advisory, then you are just another fact free remoaner.

Margaret Potter

5th September 2019 at 7:15 am

It also stated if we voted out it would mean we “leave the single market, customs union and ECJ” in an effort to frighten us to death about the future if we went through the door to the outside world. Advisory crap is just that peddled by Remainers

Garreth Byrne

4th September 2019 at 12:37 pm

I see The People are being championed by Brexiteers and Antibrexiteers again.

terence patrick hewett

4th September 2019 at 12:31 pm

It is is Boris or Corbyn. Choose.

SNJ Morgan

4th September 2019 at 11:46 am

The only good thing is that Corbyn is now as popular in Britain as Ceausescu was in Romania – if not even less so.

Come the next election, whenever that might be, it will take a Labour candidate with some chutzpah to go door-knocking anywhere outside of London or the home counties.

Steve Gray

4th September 2019 at 11:38 am

Those who side with the authorities in this situation are playing a dangerous game.

A Game

4th September 2019 at 11:17 am

My impression of the UK parliament is that this is one orgy they just don’t want to end. Especially the Tory (well, ex-tory) rebels, because as long as this game continues, so they matter.
As a foreigner looking at the newest Independent members of parliament… all I see is the dead wood being cleaned out. And this awe towards a grandson (monarchistic, inherited status) and an ex blah blah… who cares? Any position you ever hold within a government just means you pleased someone, somewhere at some point. Its zero measure of merit or talent or substance.

That they failed to understand that its coming down to crunch time. This limbo cannot continue any longer. The whine that its unfair to hold their decision to vote against their Party/Government against them, that there is to be no price to be paid to want to keep their country in servitude, that its supposed to be “no hard feelings”… except for when you are now destabilising your Party in government and are actively handing power to the opposition. That they can’t see the difference is quite shocking.
It was time to stand with your party (particularly as Labour brought Brexit back to party lines by proclaiming their Remain stance and support of a second referendum) or not. That they have chosen not to, is their prerogative… but now its time to die on that hill. They have proven that their own ideas are more important than the Party, more important than supporting their government. More important than letting your country move forward.
They are dressing it up as selflessness but anyone can see its the complete opposite. They selfishly want the limbo to go on forever… with the added benefit of still being in the EU, extension after extension.

Rees-Mogg’s performance was stellar. Seriously, how anyone can’t see him as a national treasure… Its like being in an episode of Brideshead Revisited. And his argument, bringing it home, was crystal clear. Any coup being performed in Westminster, is by the fanatical Remainers, earnest and wild-eyed and riddled with such deceit in their every point, their every argument… One can’t help but get the impression that the UK might be in need of a cultural revolution. Of the Chinese variety. It looks like the Conservatives have taken their first step in doing so.

steve moxon

4th September 2019 at 11:05 am

The Bremoaners have lost however they play it. They can’t in the end stop Brexit, and in the meantime anti-Brexit MPs have had to really stick their heads above the parapet and are going to have them knocked off. Those who don’t throw in the towel come the next election are either not going to be allowed to stand under their party colours or are going to lose their seats.
Quite a number of horror-story Conservative MPs are queuing up to declare they won’t be standing again. Just getting rid of Justine Greening is a result.

Michael Lynch

4th September 2019 at 10:49 pm

I think you called it right in a post of yours made just before the first extension after 29 March. In that the Remain contingent will virtue signal themselves into oblivion eventually. The referendum result is an unmovable object, but the Remainers are no irresistible force despite what they might think for now. There’s been a lot of talk about how Boris has lost and how he just can’t win. You can bet, however, that Dominic Cummings has worked out all the variables in advance and is playing them all perfectly. No wonder they loathe him. It is more than likely that he advised Boris to rattle the cage with prerogation so the Remainers would expose themselves. They have since come out en masse and are even clambering over themselves to let the public know how anti Brexit they are. Even the most politically illiterate amongst us can no longer be in any doubt as to what is really going on now.

steve moxon

5th September 2019 at 7:56 pm

Yes, Dominic Cummings is key. That the Brexit king rottweiler has been put in the Downing Street bunker to run everything is testament to even the men in grey suits realising the catastrophe awaiting the Conservatives if they don’t deliver Brexit. Now, is it a sign that Boris is going to do everything necessary including doing a deal with Nigel to give each other a free run for the Brexit vote in quite a number of seats? Dumping two dozen Tory Bremoaner MPs seems a real statement of intent. But does he really think he can pull it off alone? I can’t see how he could think that, even with the Glib Dems siphoning off a lot more Liebore votes that ever before.

Amelia Cantor

4th September 2019 at 10:44 am

No, today was a small but significant step in the fight back by champions of democracy against the wholly undemocratic Brexit farrago.

Or, to put it another way, the adults in the house were trying to get the matches, razor-blades and bleach bottles out of the hands of the irresponsible and ignorant children who were playing with them.

P.S. And never forget that O’Neill is a Trotskyist who does not believe in democracy in any genuine sense. He believes in power for himself and his comrades. Nor does he believe in objective truth or reason. Anyone who could for a second idolize arrogant, authoritarian, mass-murdering cisgender white males like Lenin and Trotsky has for ever forfeited any claim to the trust of serious, intelligent, ethical people.

Ian Sutherland

4th September 2019 at 12:10 pm

It’s a very dangerous thing for the minority to tell the majority they are fools and their view doesn’t count. It feels like far away something is stirring. Let us prey it doesn’t take the form of Ukraine style civil war.

Neil McCaughan

4th September 2019 at 12:55 pm

Titania does that sort of thing better, poppet. In fact, almost anyone does.

Margaret Potter

5th September 2019 at 7:09 am

Goodness you are like a broken record with your cis gender white male ranting. Give it a rest 😷

Jerry Owen

5th September 2019 at 7:52 am

A Cantor
So you believe in Parliament and democracy ? The same Parliament that is denying you an election to have your voice heard … Ironic eh !

Jane 70

Guido thinks that the HOL might block the saboteurs’ bill: let’s hope so. They just might have this chance to justify themselves.

Jerry Owen

4th September 2019 at 11:47 am

I read that.. I’d be gob smacked if they do. They are stuffed with remainers !

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 11:54 am

True, but Guido’s sources seem to think that the Remaining Lords and Ladies might not triumph this time. We can but hope. This must be stopped.

Eric Praline

4th September 2019 at 10:10 am

It’s almost made me phyiscally ill but reading comments at the Guardian and replies to my own voice-in-the-wilderness comments there. Their attachment to democracy has been unmasked as unprincipled and superficial.

Jerry Owen

5th September 2019 at 8:21 am

Eric Praline
I occasionally read the Guardian.. it always amazes me that they think I should pay them rather than the other way round !

James E Shaw

4th September 2019 at 9:52 am

Nothing warms the heart like Brendan O’Neill having a tantrum.

As I consistently point out, nothing sums up the con that is Brexit than the claim it was a revolt by the masses against an out of touch elite than the fact that it was spear headed by a public schoolboy educated at the same school as Ernest Shakelton and PG Wodehouse and championed by two public schoolboys who were every bit as much a product of Eton as David Cameron was.

We are in this mess because of a general election where no one was a clear winner.

However you spin the result Brendan, 16.1 million people are every bit as much the people as 17.4 million people are; pro EU demonstrations in London are consistently attended by well over 100,000 people.

Brexit is a con but of course Mr O’Neill throws a tantrum because he cannot bear to have it pointed out that unicorns don’t exist.

Eric Praline

4th September 2019 at 10:15 am

“16.1 million people are every bit as much the people as 17.4 million people”

Eric Praline

Eric Praline

We are in this mess because from the off parliament has refused to accept the referendum result. They would happily keep us in limbo for the next 50 years if it avoided definitely leaving.

James E Shaw

4th September 2019 at 11:19 am

As demonstrated by the fact that they voted to trigger Article 50.

Melissa Jackson

4th September 2019 at 10:40 am

So, your contention is that “the establishment” are determined by the background of a movement’s leaders? Ok. Cool.

Why don’t you have a look at the background of the author of the anti-EU Deal bill, one Hilary Benn.

Benn was privately educated, and parliament is the family business. As I recall there has been at least 1 MP in each generation of his family for a century; at least as far back as Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet in 1900. His grandfather William Benn was part of Ramsay McDonald’s government, and made a Viscount. His father Tony Benn was already an MP when he would have inherited to title, and got legislation passed specifically so he could lose the title and stay in the commons.

How much establishment can one be than the son of a viscount, and great-grandson to a baronet, all of whom were also MPs, making you the fourth generation to be in Parliament?

The real “lie” of Brexit is that it can be brushed off as some plot by the evil capitalists. This is simply not the case. Brexit is only an issue at all because UKIP made it so. Whatever you think of UKIP their 3.8 million votes in 2015 (a total about equal to SNP and LibDems combined at that election) were not the landed gentry. They were distinctly proletarian.

Grass roots working class agitation made Brexit an issue, and working class voters won the referendum.

To put it another way – When “the establishment” by your definition is represented on both sides of the debate then your definitions are simply not working.

Amelia Cantor

4th September 2019 at 10:48 am

Thank you, James. But don’t expect the rightards here to accept a calm voice of reason.

To add to your irrefutable facts about the upper-class background of the Brexit leaders: let’s not forget Brexit is also fully supported by fascist bottom-feeders like Nick Griffin, “Tommy Robinson”, the Orange Narcissist and Rapist-in-Chief, Orban, Salvini, Marine Le Pen, et al.

steve moxon

4th September 2019 at 10:53 am

The actual fascist (state totalitarian), James E Shaw, reveals his elitist-separatist totalitarian hate-mongering as ever in his inane presentation of what he tries to pass off as logic. Not even the least intelligent would buy the line that if any but very ordinary folk spout anything that is other than attacking ordinary folk, that it must somehow therefore be in the interests only of the priviliged — and that ordinary folk spouting it somehow must have been duped. There have always been people who stand for general principle and/or exhibit noblesse oblige; just as ordinary folk usually express what is in the general interest and not some class interest. James E Shaw is stuck in a bogus class-war analysis that never held even when fully in vogue. He’s not even in a timewarp, in that a time when class analysis described the dynamics of society never existed.

James E Shaw

4th September 2019 at 11:08 am

Steve, sorry to point this out but traditional Labour areas like Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle and Manchester voted to Remain.

The idea of Brexit as a working class revolution is exposed as the con that it is.

steve moxon

4th September 2019 at 11:34 am

James E Shaw doesn’t even know that Metropolitan centres are not working-class!
What next?!

steve moxon

4th September 2019 at 11:48 am

Furthermore, the Brexit majority comprises ordinary people across the board — across classes, and obviously in large part what used to be called ‘the working class’, for the simple reason that these are most folk. So it’s not false to describe the Brexit vote as a working class revolt, just that a fuller description would be ‘mainly ordinary folk’. Nobody but brain-dead throwback bogus ‘class warriors’ like James E Shaw would throw up this straw man.

With the exception of Birmingham, which voted (narrowly) to leave, all these cities voted remain.

steve moxon

4th September 2019 at 4:23 pm

How uninformed, unintelligent and wilfully obtuse can James E Shaw get?!
My city is typical: Sheffield was almost 50/50, narrowly voting leave: against James E Shaw’s fascism. The ‘metropolitan elite’ centre and rich suburbs overall voted for James E Shaw’s fascism, and everywhere else — all the poorer suburbs, ‘working class’ areas, and everywhere outlying, neighbouring towns, and out in the sticks voted against James E Shaw’s fascism.

Zammo McTrotsky

4th September 2019 at 12:11 pm

It’s delicious innit? Even though the polls show the majority would vote remain if they had a second pop, the majority think the leave vote was a mistake, and that’s been consistently true since2017 at least, Koch brothers functionary Brendan still maintains that the Oxbridge proletarians are the true guardians of democracy, even while they are expelling their own members for dissent and preventing Democratic scrutiny.

Jerry Owen

4th September 2019 at 7:02 pm

James Shaw
Maths not your strong point then ?

Jim Lawrie

5th September 2019 at 8:19 am

Jame E Shaw SNP face the problem that the strongest support for independence came in Glasgow and Dundee, compounded by the fact they have not figured out why. Both had a low turnout for The EU Referendum, so are difficult to gauge for a General Election fought on that issue. From what I can tell, there is no appetite in those areas for fealty to Westminster or Brussels. Or even Edinburgh.
The SNP, in a General Election, once again face the currency question. Anti-Tory, aka Anti-English rhetoric ,will not smokescreen that. The Euro looms.

When claiming support for remain, you quote Liverpool as a lump, but General Elections are fought on a constituency basis. The next one might well see no contest agreements between Labour and The Lib-Dems. That has the risk of a backlash from voters who object to the arrogant assumption that they are pieces on a chessboard, to be played off against each other, without a say. This whole stramash is about denying the electorate its say.

Constantine Sotiriou

4th September 2019 at 9:20 am

What can we do to help? I just don’t know anymore. Protests will probably be misconstrued and more than likely end up with squabbling between the usual factions, voting for a Brexit party will probably yield same resistance and achieve nothing, voting conservative we’ve seen gets us nowhere. Genuinely want to do something but just don’t know what can be done surely we need to get the more sane and sensible voices out there to be heard?

Dixie Hughes

4th September 2019 at 9:07 am

An interesting point brought up by Robert Craig, lecturer in Public Law at the LSE;

One of the major difficulties facing the Remainiacs new Bill, is the long-standing procedure in both Houses called “Queen’s Consent.”

“Queen’s Consent” should not be confused with “Royal Assent,” which is required for every Bill before it can become law, and is secured at the end of the legislative process, after a Bill has passed both Houses.

“Queen’s Consent” is quite a different matter; it is a procedural requirement for any Bill passing through the Commons and Lords where the terms of the Bill, if passed, would materially “affect” the exercise of any royal prerogative.
Royal prerogative powers are legacy powers of the Crown that are nowadays exercised by the government.

If a Bill affects the use of the royal prerogative, a government minister must explicitly confirm that the government agrees that the Bill should pass.
This formally happens in the Commons at the Third Reading stage.
If the government does not want the Bill to proceed, its refusal to indicate approval at the Third Reading Kills the Bill.

“Queen’s Consent” is normally a formality, because the government usually proposes (or, for Private Members Bills, acquiesces to) all Bills that are successfully voted through both Houses.

The current scenario could see a situation where a Bill, which would indeed materially affect royal prerogative, passes in the teeth of trenchant opposition from the government.

The final decision as to whether Queen’s Consent is required is made by the Speaker, but the Clerk of Legislation provides confidential legal advice to the Speaker beforehand.

Was Squeaker Bercow to ignore that legal advice, that would be the Government’s cue to head for the law courts…

Jane Carter

4th September 2019 at 9:03 am

‘We cannot let them win’
How do we stop them?
Jeremy Corbyn last night saying sovereignty rests with the people was simply gobsmacking with his party clearly hell bent on ceding sovereignty from the people to parliament. There is no hope.

Gareth Hart

4th September 2019 at 9:00 am

If what I heard from the understandable anger of phone in callers on a national talk radio station being representative, I can understand why the anti-Brexit rebels (lets drop the pretences, they want to kill Brexit) wish to avoid a General Election until they can guarantee Brexit is dead. They have stirred a hornets nest that will punish them brutally at the ballot box.

Melissa Jackson

4th September 2019 at 10:53 am

It is genuinely quite worrying to see MPs make such a show of making an unpopular but principled stand (in their own estimation) and then to simply refuse to have an election and face the results of that.

If you believe strongly enough in your cause then fine, vote against the wishes of your constituents. But after that you must seek a fresh mandate from them. When you break manifesto promises and/or switch party it is unconscionable to resist an election.

This is supposed to be the mechanism by which the will of the people is respected; by politicians having to temper their own personal feelings against the need to keep the support of their constituents.

The second that it is safe for an MP to vote against his party and his constituency then parliament becomes inherently corrupt. When MPs don’t care about the wishes of their voters they simply vote for whatever they want and we return to a pre-Great Reform Act parliament of nepotism and self-interests.

We can’t allow this to stand.

barry lucas

4th September 2019 at 8:54 am

Hitler could not defeat democracy or freedom during the war but parliament remainers are doing just that. DID WE WIN THE WAR ?

Melissa Jackson

4th September 2019 at 11:01 am

“The war” for democracy has been going since at least French Revolution, if not further back.

It is in the nature of government to increase it’s own power, at the cost of freedom. Liberty will always be struggle, and we can never say the fight is done and can be forgotten.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 11:59 am

And we’ve got one hell of a struggle ahead of us now. We must win this,our voices must be heard or parliament will forfeit our trust with dire consequences.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 8:54 am

Are we facing what will be, in effect, a liberal dictatorship? Parliamentary manoeuvres by our so called representatives, mendaciously claiming to be in the name of democracy, have essentially robbed us and stymied us.

Let’s hope that Claire D’s optimism is borne out at the next election, and that the great British public-will finally turn the tables on this shower.

The cleaning of the Augean stables is long overdue.

Margaret Potter

5th September 2019 at 7:31 am

Jane after last nights shenanigans in parliament democracy has been f.cked, we are now ‘stateless’ because our country has been sold down the river. Yes we now live in a dictatorship because the MPs drew back the curtain to reveal their true feelings about those they represent (excuse irony using ‘represent’).

Stephen J

4th September 2019 at 8:26 am

We might witness the veracity of Boris Johnson when he says that he wants to honour the referendum, if he were to adopt the position of just sitting tight now.

We can still have a proper clean brexit if he were for instance to fail to get around to giving Royal Assent to Leftwing and Benn’s treacherous bills. If he takes no action, the default is “NO DEAL”.

Johnson will reveal all, very soon.

John Millson

4th September 2019 at 8:16 am

‘…this is parliament vs the people, and it opens up one of the greatest, most troublesome constitutional crises of modern times.’
No it’s the majority of MPs trying to stop a disorderly Brexit on the behalf of the whole population.
All the ‘people’ certainly did not vote to endanger the economy and ruin the UKs international reputation.
Again it’s the English nationalists who are wrecking our society.

Stephen J

4th September 2019 at 8:39 am

I don’t think that you have the foggiest idea what this leaver (and probably the majority) think.

But as a for instance… I am not a nationalist, I am a democratic inter-nationalist, I believe that where I live there are many people who all deserve to be considered a part of the nation.

Moreover, that nation in its zeal to do the best for its funders, should honour its people by selling our wares abroad to other independent nations. Nations that interact like this ensure that standards improve continuously across the whole market.

Once you dismiss over half the population as some sort of pariah, as your sort have. Once you start to prefer the idea of handing ever more powers to a foreign body, especially one that behaves as shabbily as that Brussels mob have and continue to do, you lose the right to be listened to.

The effect of your support for globalism is that the individual loses sight of home, loses interest and all start to argue and fight amongst themselves. This is because there is always more than one way to skin a cat, and it is only through democracy, that you arrive at the best way.

John Millson

4th September 2019 at 9:48 am

Stephen J
Do you think the decision to hold this inherently divisive Brexit referendum was designed to stop us arguing amongst ourselves? Add widespread, deep self-inflicted economic troubles through a disorderly Brexit and see how much happier that makes people feel.
I agree unfettered faceless globalism can kill traditional community spirit. There is nothing wrong with being proud of where we live. There is nothing wrong with being proud of the country we live in. There is nothing wrong with knowing our roots and celebrating them. It is possible to be part of a supra-national organisation and have strong national identity, without slipping into racism.
The EU is not a ‘foreign body’ as long as the UK is part that union. It joined the union voluntarily through a public vote. If you are part of any union, club or whatever there are rules you have to abide by. It is not about ‘preferring’ anything – you value the sense of being part of a larger body.
Primarily we are part the EU because it makes trading easier. Leaving the EU with a transition process enables us to keep those trade routes free and open while we build trade further away over the whole world. We lose our influence only temporarily. That transition phase could be an opportunity to come together, to soul-search, to explore our institutions etc.; based on economic security of a temporary semi-detached relationship with the EU.
English nationalism is tricky because of the history. England was never oppressed or subjugated. Therefore, any victim-status mentality is hard to take seriously, especially from rich, smug Brexiteers.

Stephen J

9th September 2019 at 8:27 am

This is my reply to John Millson, there not being a reply flag against his reply to me?

Let me suggest that you learn a bit of history before you attempt to criticise my position.

The UK did not join the European Union through a public vote. The PM at the time, a certain traitor named E. Heath, campaigned as leader of the Tory party to NEGOTIATE our entry into the “common market” aka the EEC. He stated categorically that he WOULD NOT actually join unless he had a significant majority. Well he had a majority of tories that was in the 50’s, and when he went against his manifesto, lied about sovereignty, lied about fishing rights and countless other issues, fought his own party and ignored the opponents and took the UK into the EEC on a parliamentary majority of just 8 (eight).

There was NO public vote, it was not the EU, it was 1972.

In 1974, Harold Wilson campaigned for the leadership for Labour and much of Labour was anti-Common Market… The Bennite position. He said that he would hold a referendum on our continuing membership of the EEC and that he would be campaigning to leave (NO), a position which he later shifted from by 180 degrees.

During that referendum the establishment spent an absolute fortune on the remain (YES) campaign whilst starving the other side, which lost badly. This can be verified by a quick trawl on the subject across the net.

We losers went back to our lives and carried on. The winners went on to morph the “common market” into the European Union, and we were never asked again until 2016.

We leavers are leaving the EU simply because it is anti-democratic and the UK is supposed to be a democracy. The EU is involved in 12% our our overseas trade, which will not cease when we leave the EU, the rest is mostly executed under WTO terms. We gain the ability to improve on this by making our own bilateral deals with other international traders.

As to your disgusting assertion that to vote leave is racist, that is totally perverse. Take a look at a Brexit Party meeting… any, and tell me that the gathering is racist… You can’t. But you can see EU racism at work all of the time.

As to your last incoherent statement about victimhood… Don’t make me laugh, the esteemed victims at all times are as you know, all of the social justice warriors that launch all their wonderful divisiveness at every opportunity.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 9:29 am

Are you forgetting the substantial Welsh support for Leave?

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 10:39 am

I’m neither a nationalist not a ‘rich, smug, brexiteer’ . As previously pointed out,you seem to have forgotten the substantial Welsh vote and the fact that 1 million of us here in Scotland voted to leave as well.

The English Nationalist trope doesn’t cut it John.

Parliament has had 3 years to negotiate a workable withdrawal agreement and to deliver the referendum result as promised.

We are now faced with politicians who have openly stated that they will never accept a leave vote -Swinson,and others who don’t seem to know what they do want and weasels like Hammond who are defying their own party.

John Millson

4th September 2019 at 10:59 am

Jane 70,
Apologies for not mentioning the Welsh & Scottish Leave vote.
Yes, MPs have behaved atrociously and stupidly.
If we had left on March 29th, do people seriously think we would experiencing the same degree of angst as we are now? All common sense and reasonableness is disappearing.
The Brextremists and the Remainiacs would just fade away as the act of leaving the EU started to take place, as planned, on March 29th.

Melissa Jackson

4th September 2019 at 11:20 am

Two points for you Mr Million –

Firstly; when you characterise Brexit as “inherently divisive” you seem to be somewhat missing the point. On the one hand, the fact that Brexit is a divisive issue that has large numbers on both sides demonstrates that it needed to be debated and contested? On the other hand, wouldn’t any electoral issue of any sort be “inherently divisive”? Has there ever been any legitimate election where the two sides were not in strong disagreement? Democracy exists as a way to peacefully solve divisive issues, but this requires both sides to accept the result. Brexit only remains divisive because Remain has renaged on the promise to accept the result.

Secondly; you argue that there are two kinds of nationalism, and that nationalism is acceptable for those with “victim status” but not for those without. This is simply a nonsense. Your description would say that 1930’s Germany had every right to become a right wing hellscape, because they had been horrendously treated at Versaille. It also would say that the British (not English, by the way) nationalist spirit that fought the Germany National Socialists is illegitimate. I am also interested to know how you would feel about Russian and Iranian nationalism. Are these acceptable or not?

Historic victimhood is no excuse for poor behavior. If one opposes the notion of nationalism then it must be all nationalism.

It shows an incredible lack of principle to say that some nationalism is ok, if they have some historic grievance. If the Scots build concentration camps, will you still say that this is ok because the English have kept them down over the centuries?

John Millson

4th September 2019 at 1:48 pm

OK any election is contentious, involving debate and disagreement but it everyone knew right from the start the outcome of the Brexit referendum would leave a divisive legacy. If Remain had won the referendum on the same margin and assuming Farage deserted Ukip and formed the Brexit Party, we would have that same Brexit Party in European Parliament now, behaving in the same destructive way. I would call that divisive. Apart from that, the dynamics would be completely different – we would not be facing any kind of countdown to ‘doomsday’.
That we now face leaving the EU in a disorderly way, with probable shortages of food and medicines, lower currency value, higher prices, security risks, job lay-offs etc., which could all have been avoided, just deepens the sense of division.
I agree, as with any other election, Brexit was ‘inherently divisive’, but I would add that the aftermath could be *permanently* divisive, unless some sort common sense, protective measures, which are on offer, are agreed by our MPs.
I make no excuse for ‘Remainiacs’ refusing to accept the result.
Re nationalism, of course it is all about specific historical examples. England, unlike so many other nations immediately surrounding it, has not been invaded and oppressed. It has been one of the countries doing the invading and oppressing. I am not sure any kind of political and inward-looking nationalism is OK these days. *Civic* nationalism, as I understand it, is a different thing.
Scotland building concentration camps? Er, no.

Jerry Owen

4th September 2019 at 11:52 am

John Millson
The irony of your post.. the ‘nationalists’ as you call them want to trade with the rest of the world, that is internationalism.
Get with it man ! Stop talking in outdated cliche’s !

Russell Durose

4th September 2019 at 8:14 am

The only way to stop this is take this to the Supreme court and charge Parliament with treason. They said if we voted leave it meant leave. The ballot paper mentions no leaving with a deal. After the Referendum we were guaranteed that by 29th March 2019 we would leave. Was extended. Now Mps are defying their constituencies and crossing the floor in a show of contempt for not only the PM but the public. It is the worst ever and clearest ever behaviour that we can expect from the EU. Despicable. We would win in the Supreme and get them arrested for treason.

H McLean

4th September 2019 at 8:13 am

The sad thing is British citizens are so wedded to the idea that they have the mother of parliaments and that their democratic model is a beacon of hope to the world that they will take every injustice and insult with a stiff upper lip. If this was France they would have burnt down the parliament and dragged out la guillotine for some very vulgar and public interpretations of ‘people’s democracy’.

H D Marshall

4th September 2019 at 8:08 am

The one hope I have is that the rebel MP’s come to realize in the end that they are Dr Frankenstien and that their monster is realised, in the form of a Tory/Brexit party majority in the HoC and it will be all their doing, their monster. That is if we are allowed a G’E

Jerry Owen

4th September 2019 at 8:02 am

Bang on the money BON.
Death by a thousand cuts. The ebbing and flowing over the last three years has been pretty much one directional, like a tide going out. time has killed it. The elites had had so much time to plot and scheme and we have seen Brexit dying every step of the way.
I did have some vague sense of hope when Boris got elected like many others, however the brutality and force of the media and the ‘remainers’ ( Hitler , Dictator and all the other illiterate insults ) was too much for him. What ever happened to the tape of his alleged treatment of his girlfriend ?
If anyone doubts the power and total loathing the media and political elites have for democracy then they are politically illiterate, and should be careful what they wish for in future.
This anti democratic behaviour actually takes my right and others to criticise other anti democratic nations around the globe.. how can you criticise another undemocratic country when you live in a banana republic yourself, you can’t it makes you a hypocrite. They have taken something personal from each of us as well.
For the first time ever, i feel totally powerless. Quite where we go from here I have no idea. Even if by some miracle we were to turn this juggernaut around ant trust in our parliamentary establishment has gone for ever. If the history books are written truthfully this will go down as the quashing of one of the largest political uprisings in British political life ever.

Jim Lawrie

4th September 2019 at 10:44 am

If they succeed in making a clean break illegal, that will form the basis for making any such discussion illegal.

Here in Scotland a carnival of anti-Tory, anti-English, United Ireland, Scottish Independence, and fealty to the EU are all celebrating at getting their own way while democracy expires.

A referendum on a United Ireland, in Northern Ireland, might dampen them down. As will a general election, and a Scottish Indyref.
There is an arrogant assumption among would be Irish Republicans in Scotland that every Catholic in Northern Ireland must vote for a United Ireland.

One thing we have on our side is the Remain fear of elections. They speak of elections conditional on their terms being met. We must remind them forcefully that this is not democracy.

Let’s not despair. We can fight.

John Millson

4th September 2019 at 11:45 am

‘They speak of elections conditional on their terms being met. We must remind them forcefully that this is not democracy.’ Why is it not ‘democracy’?
Thank goodness for the The Fixed-term Parliament Act, 2011. The end of announcing strategic ‘snap’ elections by the PM.
I am sure in this situation Johnson would value a constitutional mechanism which forced new leaders of the governing party to go to the country within 6 months of becoming new PM, if there was more than 12 months left to run of the current Parliament.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 12:03 pm

Sturgeon is crowing with delight,despite her recent bad hair day at Holyrood, Fat Controller Blackford is trumpeting about democracy and life is pretty lonely for Brexit supporters isn’t it?

Eric Blair

4th September 2019 at 7:43 am

Hyperbolic nonsense as usual. We’re leaving the EU. Just not crashing out. And recognising the complications involved in the process. That’s all. If the boot was on the other foot you would be cheering from the rafters the reassertion of Parliamentary sovereignty against the elitist manoeuveres of the Executive.

H D Marshall

4th September 2019 at 8:05 am

You understand what taking no deal off the table means? We will never truly leave and never truly remain, hamstrung for eternity, never prosperous never free, and it is literally being cheered on by the elites and media.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 9:32 am

Purgat-EUry

Stephen J

4th September 2019 at 8:46 am

Hyper-bollocks from Eric rather than hyperbole…

Eric Praline

4th September 2019 at 10:14 am

Surely you don’t mean the WA? In what sense is that “leaving”? It’s the only sort of leaving that remoaners will tolerate.

Neil McCaughan

4th September 2019 at 12:58 pm

Silly child. Are you unaware that after three years the EU has resolutely refused any deal, preferring to attempt to impose a punitive and neo-colonial settlement on the UK?

H D Marshall

4th September 2019 at 7:39 am

It needs hammering home from every pro brexit/democrat what it actually means if parilament pass the law preventing a No deal brexit.
It will mean that we will never get a trade deal with the EU, we will never have the power to strike trade deals with the rest of the world whilst we are still in the ‘withdrawal agreement’ stages. It needs hammering home that the actions of parliament yesterday have hamstrung Britiain into a perceptual nightmare, that our own British MP’s are willing to throw citizens under the bus for the sake of the EU. It needs hammering home that this does not mean remain either, we will have no powers to influence what is happening in the EU. A perpetual nightmare with silent screams.
What is the word for these people, fanatics don’t seem strong enough a word, they are willing to crush Britain for the sake of a membership??? indoctrinated flunkies? I don’t but they need a new word and that word needs to follow them everywhere. I’m a bit miffed, if you couldn’t tell.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 9:33 am

EU-tarts; they’ve sold themselves and us.

Davy Hayes

4th September 2019 at 7:31 am

Tony Benn must be spinning in his grave as his disciple Judas Corbyn betrays his lifetime of opposition to the common market now known as the EU. WHY JUDAS WHY?

Winston Stanley

4th September 2019 at 2:34 pm

Indeed, I can understand what SNP and SF hope to get out of opposition to Brexit, though to be fair to SF they have always said that they respect the referendum result, they just do not want NI to leave. But LP? What the he ll do they hope to get out of this palaver? Merely a term in government?

Alexander Allan

4th September 2019 at 7:30 am

If the Brexiteers want to win the battle, they need to stop letting the Remainers and their activists in the broadcasting media dictate the language. We need to stop using their slogans such as “soft Brexit” or “no deal Brexit” as it just normalises it thus making them sound factual, instead of it being the subjective opinion that it is. Furthermore every-time some it is used by a commentator they should challenged on it and not given a pass.

When the Remainers started saying that prorogueing was a “coup” the BBc started using word in their questioning. It will be interesting to see if, when questioning Remainers, they will refer to Tony Benn’s bill as the Surrender Bill. I very much doubt it.

We need to stop using the oppositions propaganda against ourself, and that includes Spiked!

Philip Humphrey

4th September 2019 at 7:28 am

Trying to look on the positive side, at least Boris has now purged the parliamentary tory party of rebels/traitors. They can be replaced by brexiteer candidates before an election. This is something the Tories should have done back in 2017 before the last election. It is shameful that so many MPs were elected on manifestos to carry out Brexit then, they now stand exposed as liars and betrayers.

Eric Blair

4th September 2019 at 7:45 am

And that’s how you destroy the last vestiges of the broad church Conservative Party. Even Thatcher tolerated the Wets.

Jim Lawrie

4th September 2019 at 10:15 am

Those MP’s who defected all had the opportunity to stand for the leadership. Most of them represent leave constituencies.

Corbyn has the opportunity that he claimed to crave and to stand for election. Instead he now legislates without that inconvenience, and without a mandate.

This is not about the many egoes in Westminster, although it has brought them and their cowardice to the fore. Names Like Quisling and Judas are with us for a reason.

One part of the electorate that they do not talk about are those who voted remain but have decided to put their personal views to one side and vote leave for the sake of country and democracy. That silence is not surprising because men and women of principle have no home in Remain.

There are also those who now see the Remain establishment for what it is and will want no part in their continuation.

I voted for independence in Scotland but will vote against it next time. Sturgeon’s sleekit opportunism in all this has been the envy of her fellow shysters in Westminster. Not least for the way it has gone unnoticed. On a day like yesterday her contribution was to complain that someone had teased her about her hair. After she had ridiculed his appearance. But hers was humour, his rampant sexism.

An alliance between The Brexit and Conservative Parties, based on a complete and immediate withdrawal, is now on the cards.

H McLean

4th September 2019 at 8:15 am

Phil, I suspect this will be the end of the Tories as a party. If this doesn’t bury them for good nothing will.

Jim Lawrie

4th September 2019 at 11:05 am

I think they are capable of a re-alignment and we will see Jacob Rees Mogg coming to the fore.

Winston Stanley

4th September 2019 at 7:10 am

“If they void the millions of votes cast in 2016, they void the right to vote itself.”

Much of the world, from Russia to IS and AQ, from China to Iran must be wetting themselves laughing at British “democracy”. The entire past three years and last night have been one long massive propaganda victory against British democracy in particular and against western democracy in general. They will say that British democracy has been revealed as an utter sham and shambles at the hands of the British establishment itself and the EU. They themselves have made democracy a laughing stock before the entire world. Indeed an endless propaganda campaign against democracy seems to be the only occupation of the British establishment now. It is like their one mission now is to discredit democracy completely. And what a thing to come out with now, after the events of the past five years. What a shambles.

Claire D

4th September 2019 at 8:45 am

Winston,
you might be right about the laughter, but it’s possible they’ll be laughing on the other side of their faces further down the line.

Claire D

4th September 2019 at 6:47 am

It looks worrying right now but I really cannot see us remaining in the EU. There’s just more pain and aggravation to get through before leaving is achieved but I think we will ultimately leave.

Philip Humphrey

4th September 2019 at 7:30 am

I think you’re right. We will leave in the end, staying in is unsustainable. But remainers are a bit like the Japanese empire in 1942 after Midway and Guadalcanal. They’ve lost and they know it, but they’re pointlessly going to fight on for as long as possible.

Jerry Owen

4th September 2019 at 8:05 am

Claire D
If I pay for the postage can you send me some of your optimism ?

Claire D

4th September 2019 at 8:38 am

Jerry,
smile, it’s not just optimism, it’s also that I’m pleased to see someone (Boris) have the guts to bring on a crisis which I think is probably necessary to get to where we are going, better than being stuck in the doldrums as we have been for the last nearly 3 years.
There’s going to have to be a General Election soon, I think that it will be a cataclysmic one and the political landscape will look very different indeed in 6 months time.
I am hopeful.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 8:54 am

O I do hope you’re right Claire. This cannot go on.

Phil Ford

4th September 2019 at 6:40 am

“…In essence, this evening MPs have gone some way, almost all the way, to achieving the terrible thing they have been agitating for since June 2016: stopping Brexit. That is their fundamental aim. It is essential to understand that when they talk about ‘blocking No Deal’, they mean ‘blocking Brexit’.”

Yes, this is exactly what is happening. I feel utterly defeated by the malevolence at work here – and, worse, powerless to prevent what they are doing. Our legitimate democratic vote is being stolen from right before our eyes. Denied. Canceled. Are we living in some kind of totalitarian, only nominally ‘democratic’ state? Voting is no longer a thing? Votes no longer have to be taken into account, let alone actually acted upon? So what is it going to take to restore the demos? Civil uprising? These people have to be stopped – they are embarking a course of unquestionable evil which sets a sinister precedence. That all this should be happening in Great Britain makes this unfolding tragedy all the more disturbing.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 8:38 am

So do I; demoralised, lied, to betrayed.

Even if there is yet another GE, up here north of the border, there might not be a candidate who supports Brexit, so I may not be able to vote .

Sturgeon has now gone full steam ahead, demanding that yet another indyref be implemented.

Michael Lynch

4th September 2019 at 11:02 pm

Wouldn’t worry too much. In my opinion, Cummings has all this worked out in advance. He’s probably got every variable nailed and is playing the Remainer fools nicely.

Margaret Potter

4th September 2019 at 4:10 am

Up to now Leave Voters have conducted themselves in a well mannered tolerant way whilst Remainer MPs and wealthy elites have insulted, abused, negated and ignored our decision. Perhaps it is now time for us to take to the streets and up the anti to fight for our ‘votes’, sovereignty, and recapture our country from EU 🤭🇬🇧 ?

Jane 70

Let’s hope the TBP can lead the challenge, without running the risk of allowing Corbyn into no 10. Pundits seem to believe that the crucial Leave supporters’ vote in any forthcoming GE, might well be split.

Last night’s parliamentary shenanigans have shown that the referendum result has been bent out of shape by an increasingly determined elite, all in the name of democracy.

Eric Praline

4th September 2019 at 10:12 am

Yep, things would probably have to get violent before anyone took any notice though. The remainers are definitely better at getting their message across, but then they have more help.

Jane 70

4th September 2019 at 1:48 am

Welcome to the Hotel Remainia- you can check in, but you can never Leave.

3 years wasted.

Suzy Hirst

4th September 2019 at 1:12 am

Parliament has power over the executive only because the great unwashed cede that power to them.

It would be a deserving end if every constituency who voted to leave were to deselected their wet MP for misrepresenting their vote. They have forgotten what their job is. I am pleased to see the whip withdrawn from these hubristic grand-standers.

Unfortunately, they are the epitome of the remain vote … ‘it’s all about me,me,me!

But, we must try to reconcile the great unwashed. If Boris gets a half reasonable deal I think we should accept it (I’m an ardent leaver). This will allow both UK and EU to claim victory and will reconcile those remainers genuinely opposed to a ‘no deal’…. as opposed to a ‘no exit’.

I’m sure we are all sick and tired of Brexit. Trying to please everybody ends up with pleasing nobody (ask Corbyn) ………. Labour et el should allow Boris to negotiate (with no deal a possibility) and get the bl**dy thing done!

Eric Blair

4th September 2019 at 7:49 am

The problem with no-deal Brexit supporters is they have forgotten that MP’s are employed to represent the interests of their constituency in all their shades of opinion, priorites and needs. They are not elected to only have one opinion on one issue, no matter how much you would like them to.

Stephen J

4th September 2019 at 8:50 am

So all those MP’s who are sitting in constituencies where the majority voted to leave are representing the interests of yheir voters when they ignore them are they?

What strange logic is this?

Eric Praline

4th September 2019 at 10:11 am

We had a national referendum in case you forgot. Individual constituences can’t opt out.

James Knight

6th September 2019 at 4:43 pm

These MPs have forgetten that they are public servants, the public are not servants of them.

As for “representing all shades”, this is BS. If remain had won, would we have spent 3 years seeking compromise to represent all shades?
Say leaving the EU and staying in the customs union? I am all for compromise. A free trade deal is a compromise. No deal is a compromise. Staying in the EU in all but name is a sell out. It is like Corbyn winning an election and Johnson suggesting they form a coalition.

MPs don’t want parliament to be sovereign because they know it means more direct accountability for them, not to mention the loss of an alternative career path in the EU when their careers in parliament craps out because we don’t want them.

Michael Lynch

4th September 2019 at 1:06 am

Utter, sheer madness. Parliament is now officially working for Brussels and not the British people. Boris has now, at least, fully exposed the Remain hypocrisy for all to see. 328 MPs have crossed the Rubicon tonight and it can no longer be deemed a Parliament by the people for the people. There can no longer be any doubt about this and they must be removed in the next GE by those who believe in their sovereign right to vote and be counted. If not, then democracy of the people has been defeated for good in Europe. The next step will be an unchecked move toward Federalism and an end to the Nation State. Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish NATIONALIST Party beware!

Neil Saunders

4th September 2019 at 12:39 am

The betrayal of Brexit has been more highly choreographed over the last three years than the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in the last thirty.

rb 14

4th September 2019 at 12:28 am

Almost everything that has happened post-referendum is an absolute disgrace. Please let there be a proper Brexit Party in the GE and let’s repeat – and amplify – the wonderful results of the last May’s European election.